President says something silly

The President has received a lot of Republican "feedback" on his statement that, "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that." Leaving aside the astonishingly inept phrasing, the President's larger point is not unreasonable.  If you own a successful business you do benefit from things the government provide (rule of law, security, infrastructure, healthy educated workforce, basic research, etc).  It is really the logic that flows from this obvious truth that differentiates the President form his Republican critics. The President appears to believe that success flows from what the government provides.  Therefore the government is justified in taking the fruits of that success. Republicans tend to believe what the government is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for individual success (even if they don't generally state it in this way).  Therefore the government has only a limited claim on the earnings of successful individuals. Beliefs about the relative importance of government have broader implications. The President's apparent belief that prosperity flows from government, implies that more government equals more prosperity.  From this viewpoint the cost of government is almost irrelevant. The Republican view that things provided by government are merely one of the preconditions for prosperity leads logically to the focus on providing these things at minimum cost. Unfortunately, we're unlikely to see much thoughtful debate about the relative merits of these two viewpoints.   Hammering the President for the dimwitted quote above is much more fun.

How to become a billionaire

Interesting insight on how people become billionaires in different parts of the world. Many Americans appear to believe that they are the victims of a hopelessly corrupt economic system run by and for 1% oligarchs.  Before buying this narrative it might be a good idea to look at countries that actually have hopelessly corrupt economic system run by and for oligarchs.

Now look at Russia, where one hundred billionaires control fortunes worth an astonishing 20 percent of national GDP. Russia has nearly as many billionaires as China but they control twice as much total wealth in an economy one-fourth the size. Just as striking, Russia is missing not only a middle class but also a millionaire class; according to Boston Consulting Group, China ranks third in the world for number of millionaires, while Russia is not even in the top 15 for millionaires. The growing business influence of the state is reflected in the fact that 69 of those billionaires live in Moscow, the largest concentration for any city in the world. Protected by their patrons, the richest face little competition. Eight of the top 10 are holdovers from 2006. More than 80 percent of the wealth of Russian billionaires comes from non-productive industries like real estate, construction and especially commodities, namely oil and gas, in which political ties can sustain fortunes indefinitely. In no other developing nation is this share greater than 35 percent. Even in Brazil, a commodity economy at the same income level as Russia, the non-productive share of billionaires' wealth is just 12 percent.